Lecture 8- Post World Unrest & Social Change (US History 1877–Present)

Exam Logistics

  • Midterm window: Thursday 12{:01}\text{ AM} to Sunday 11{:59}\text{ PM} during Week 3 of the 7-week term.
    • Once opened, single attempt; timer (approx. 60–90 min) runs continuously—no pause/re-entry.
  • Format
    • Multiple choice (autograded).
    • 2 essay questions—open note/book/web, but instructor expects original, thoughtful synthesis.
  • Practical advice
    • Reserve an uninterrupted hour.
    • Email/Zoom office hours available all week for clarification.

“Long Arc” Approach to History

  • Historians trace ideas across decades/centuries; movements rarely appear ex nihilo.
  • Examples
    • Soviet Revolution 1917–1922 derives from Marx’s 1848 Communist Manifesto.
    • Women’s suffrage culminates in 19th Amendment (1920), but roots reach Abigail Adams (late 18th c.) and Seneca Falls ( 1840s).
    • Progressive Era borrows from Populist ideas (labor, anti-trust, monetary reform).
  • Key exam mindset: connect lecture content to earlier material; history is inherently cumulative.

Global Unrest After WWI

  • Russian Civil War 1917–1922
    • Red (Bolshevik) vs. White (monarchist + republican) forces.
    • Allied intervention (incl. \text{US} troops pictured in St. Petersburg) tries—and fails—to "kill communism in the cradle."
  • British Empire crises
    • Financial exhaustion + war deaths.
    • Rebellions: India, Ireland ("Black and Tan War"), Egypt, Middle East, Africa.
  • Rise of Fascism
    • Benito Mussolini’s March on Rome (1922); “Black Shirts,” call to resurrect Roman grandeur.
    • Inspires Adolf Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich (1923); incarceration → writes Mein Kampf, blueprint for WWII.

Spanish Flu Pandemic (1918–1920)

  • Likely originated 1917 on a Kansas pig farm → Fort Leavenworth.
  • Troop transport & imperial networks spread virus worldwide; neutral Spain’s uncensored press reports first → misnamed “Spanish.”
  • Public-health measures mirrored \text{COVID-19} century later: masks, shutdowns, distancing.
  • Mortality
    • WWI deaths/wounded ≈ 41 million.
    • Flu deaths estimated 50 million.
    • Combined human toll \approx 90\text{–}100 million.
  • Struck healthy young adults disproportionately, compounding social anxiety.

Women’s Liberation Milestones

  • 19th Amendment ratified 1920 → nationwide female suffrage.
  • Cultural shift: “Flappers” (bobbed hair, sleeveless sequined dresses, smoking, public dancing, casual dating). Mostly white/middle-class but symbolic of autonomy.
  • Birth-control debate
    • Margaret Sanger jailed 1916 for promoting contraception; seeds modern reproductive-rights movement.
  • Intersections
    • Temperance/Prohibition embedded in Women’s Christian Temperance Union activism—linking family welfare with anti-alcohol politics.

Prohibition & Organized Crime

  • 18th Amendment (1919) → Volstead Act (1920) bans manufacture/sale of alcohol.
  • Intended goals
    • Curb domestic abuse, drunkenness, "wasteful" spending by working-class men.
  • Unequal impact
    • Middle/upper classes maintain access via speakeasies; working class & poor bear enforcement brunt.
  • Bootlegging windfall finances mafia growth (Al Capone, Frank Costello).
    • Later Great Depression philanthropy (soup kitchens) cultivates “Robin Hood” mythos.

First Red Scare (1919–1922)

  • Triggers
    • Bolshevik success + global labor militancy.
    • US strikes
    • Seattle General Strike (Feb 1919).
    • Boston Police Strike (Sept 1919).
    • Winnipeg General Strike (Canada) alarms observers: city-wide work stoppage 6 weeks.
  • Government / public reaction
    • Heightened surveillance, mass arrests, deportations (Palmer Raids).
    • Immigration clampdown → “Great White Wall”: Australia, Canada, NZ, S. Africa enact racially selective quotas; US follows with Emergency Quota Act 1921 and Johnson-Reed Act 1924.

Labor Confrontations

  • Coal Fields
    • After WWI no-strike pledge expires; companies refuse contract reforms.
    • Matewan shoot-out (1920) escalates to Battle of Blair Mountain (1921).
  • Battle specifics
    • \sim10{,}000 armed miners vs. mine guards, state police, private detectives.
    • Trenches, dynamited rail bridges, improvised artillery; private planes drop bombs.
    • US Army deployment forces miner surrender—fear of communist-style revolution on US soil.
  • Consequence: reinforces anti-union sentiment during Red Scare.

Racial Tension: Red Summer 1919

  • Spike in lynchings; return of segregated Black WWI veterans (e.g., Harlem Hellfighters) fuels demands for equality.
  • Major riots: Washington DC, Chicago—property destruction, dozens killed/injured.

Sacco & Vanzetti Case (1920–1927)

  • Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti—Italian immigrants, anarchists—arrested for Braintree payroll guard murder.
  • Trial marred by language barriers, prejudiced judge, anti-immigrant climate; convicted 1921, executed in electric chair 1927.
    • Global protests (e.g., Trafalgar Square, London) denounce verdict as political show-trial.
  • 1990s Massachusetts review: posthumous exoneration + state apology.
  • Modern parallel: politicized prosecutions of undocumented immigrants/"others."

Tulsa Massacre 1921

  • Spark: disputed incident outside Tulsa courthouse.
  • White mobs, aided by some law enforcement, raze Greenwood (“Black Wall Street”).
  • Casualties
    • Deaths: \ge 42 (official) to \approx150 (scholarly estimates).
    • Injured: \approx800.
    • Arrested: \approx6{,}000 Black residents—victims detained while homes destroyed.
  • Symbolic loss of a prosperous, self-sufficient Black economic hub.

Immediate Outcomes & Atmosphere by mid-1920s

  • Immigration nearly sealed (1924 quotas).
  • Ku Klux Klan resurgence; membership surges into \text{Midwest} & West, exploiting fears of Catholics, Jews, immigrants, African Americans, radicals.
  • Organized labor setback
    • Samuel Gompers dies 1924; AFL leadership vacuum + Red Scare stigma → membership declines.
  • Societal mood: relief at WWI end offset by pandemics, economic volatility, racial violence, ideological fear—setting stage for both Roaring Twenties consumerism and looming Great Depression.

Study Connections & Themes

  • Interplay of war, disease, and ideology shapes early 20th-c. society.
  • Recurrent pattern: crises → reactionary policies (immigration quotas, anti-labor laws, KKK growth).
  • Progress & backlash coexist: women gain vote while Black communities face escalated terror; prohibition aims at moral reform but spawns organized crime.
  • Long-term seeds: Fascism & communism germinating in 1920s eventually dominate 1930s–40s geopolitics; unresolved US racial & labor issues resurface in civil-rights era & beyond.